Claire Daniels and Homer Clegg

Claire Daniels and Homer Clegg are estranged spouses whose unresolved marriage blocks Claire’s intended future with Max von Strohheim. Homer’s refusal to grant a divorce first makes Claire look for a way around him; when they meet again in Reno, Nevada, he too wants the marriage ended. Their story shifts from a one-sided effort to escape a reluctant husband to a divorce both now have reason to pursue.

Marriage and the Obstacle

Claire is still married to Homer while Max is pressing her to do what he regards as the right thing and marry him. That wish immediately exposes the practical barrier: Claire cannot simply begin the new marriage while her existing one remains in force. Georgiana Rannoch recalls that Homer is a Texan oilman and that he refused to divorce Claire, making his unwillingness, rather than a continuing shared life, the active force in their relationship.

Claire’s account of their meeting gives the failed marriage a history. She met Homer in Paris in the 1920s, when he appeared debonair, naïve, and extraordinarily wealthy. Only after marrying him did she discover that he did not drink and expected her to live on a ranch in Texas. Claire presents that prospect as incompatible with the life she wanted; even Castle Rannoch, she says, was bearable by comparison because supplies could be sent from Fortnum’s. Her description emphasizes the gulf between the life Homer expected and the one she wanted, without suggesting that the couple had found a compromise.

The marriage also persists as a social and legal identity after Claire has emotionally turned toward Max. At Brown’s Hotel, the staff welcome her as Your Grace, while Georgiana reflects that the hotel conveniently overlooks Claire’s changed status as Mrs. Homer Clegg. Georgiana anticipates that Claire may soon be Frau von Strohheim, but that future remains conditional on ending the existing marriage. The contrast between the hotel’s deference to Claire’s former title and her married name makes visible how old identities linger even as she imagines replacing them.

Claire’s Nevada Plan

Rather than wait for Homer’s consent, Claire proposes going to the United States to obtain a divorce in Reno, Nevada. She has been told that the process there can be quick and believes that, under the right circumstances, the other spouse need not appear. The plan is therefore not a reconciliation attempt: it is a strategy for proceeding without the agreement that Homer has withheld.

The arrangement proves less immediate than Claire first hopes. Stella Brightwell explains that Nevada requires six weeks of residence, a delay that Claire had not understood when making her plans. The requirement puts a definite condition on the escape route: Reno may offer a way to proceed without Homer’s participation, but Claire must still satisfy the state’s residency rule. The obstacle is not resolved by a simple change of location, and the evidence does not establish that Claire has a special exemption from the six-week requirement.

This plan puts the spouses on separate courses toward the same legal outcome. Claire is pursuing a divorce because Homer has refused to give her one in Texas; she expects to have to manage the process without him. Homer, meanwhile, is absent from her expectations as an ally or participant. The eventual reversal depends not on Claire persuading him, but on his arriving in Reno for reasons of his own.

The Reno Reversal

Near the end of the story, Claire goes in search of Homer at the ranch and Georgiana waits in a small bungalow, expecting bad news. Claire returns soon afterward, her distress replaced by excitement. She explains that Homer did not know she was in Reno and that he had come there because he wanted a quick divorce from her. He has found someone he wants to marry; as a result, he is no longer maintaining the religious objection that had stood in the way of Claire’s freedom.

The coincidence changes the meaning of the Nevada plan. Homer’s earlier refusal had left Claire imagining that his consent would never come, so she had sought a route that did not require his presence. Now his independent purpose removes the central personal opposition: both want the marriage dissolved, though for different prospective marriages. Claire expects the divorce to be completed within a few days, after which she and Max will be free to return home. The account presents this as her expectation, not as a detailed description of the legal proceedings or their final paperwork.

Claire’s relief is tied to the practical prospect of a future with Max, not to renewed affection for Homer. When Georgiana asks whether they must attend Cy Goldman’s funeral, Claire says she has had enough of America and wants to go home. Her answer confirms that the immediate priority is to finish the divorce and leave, rather than prolong her stay for an event to which she does not feel closely connected.

Significance of the Relationship

The marriage’s central conflict is shaped by the difference between formal status and private intention. Claire has already turned toward a new future, yet Homer’s refusal keeps the old marriage in force. Nevada initially appears to offer Claire a procedural way around that refusal, but its six-week residency condition shows that the route still carries limits. Resolution comes through an unplanned alignment of interests: Homer wants a divorce too, because he intends to marry someone else.

That reversal also complicates Claire’s description of Homer as religiously puritanical. His earlier beliefs help explain why she expected him to deny her a divorce; his arrival in Reno for the same purpose demonstrates that those beliefs no longer prevent him from seeking one. The story does not supply a fuller account of his change of mind or identify the person he wants to marry. Its decisive point is narrower and concrete: the husband who had seemed to control Claire’s ability to leave has come, without knowing she is there, to seek the same ending.